Katusha doctors knew about Luca Paolini’s sleeping drug addiction

Luca Paolini’s addiction to sleeping medication indirectly led to the Italian’s cocaine positive at Tour de France – Katusha doctors eventually refused to give him sleeping drug – Paolini would drink ‘five or six’ cups of coffee before breakfast to wake up Luca Paolini in action during Stage 3 of the 2015 Tour de San Luis Luca Paolini’s sleeping medication addition was a known problem in team Katusha, says team doctor Massimo Besnati. The Italian rider took greater amounts to sleep at night and drank more and more coffee to wake in the morning before a cocaine positive test the Tour de France stopped him this July. The 38-year-old Italian explained yesterday in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper that he was addicted to Benzodiazepine drops, but now has recovered thanks in part to the Tour anti-doping test. “Lormetazepam, the principle ingredient among all Benzodiazepines, is what brings on dependency,” Besnati told the newspaper today. “You start with 10 drops, then 15, 20, 30… You arrive at 100. If you try to stop, like all drugs, you have withdrawal symptoms. “Yes, I knew. I knew this was his dependency. I told him he couldn’t go on this […]